New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry had sent out advisories to hospitals run by the central government and to state governments to ensure that doctors write the names of cheaper generic medicines in capital letters while handing out prescription to patients.
Sources told CNN-News18 that the advisories were sent a few months ago.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Monday indicated that his government may bring in a legal framework under which doctors will have to prescribe generic medicines, which are cheaper than equivalent branded drugs, to patients.
"Doctors write prescriptions in such a way that poor people do not understand the handwriting, and he has to buy that medicine from private stores at high prices," Modi said.
"We will bring in a legal framework by which if a doctor writes a prescription, he has to write in it that it will be enough for patients to buy generic medicine and he need not buy any other medicine," he had said at the inauguration of a charitable hospital in Gujarat.
"It is the government's responsibility that everybody should get health services at minimal price," the PM had said. "We have recently declared a health policy. The health policy has been brought in after 15 years."
"Companies which are manufacturing medicines used to charge Rs 1,200 for an injection. We called everyone (pharma companies) and ensured that the prices are reduced. The prices of 700 medicines were capped so that poor people get medicines at reasonable rates when they face grave diseases," Modi said. "We have also capped the prices of stents used in heart ailments," he said.
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